a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Bits from Practice 10/9

**Tyrone Corbin on Big Al going 1-8 last night: He took the right shots. I mean, Al is one guy, they gonna debble [double]. So the main thing we’re trying to get to now is guys playing off of him. Where the guys gonna be when they come down and debble on Al. Getting space to give him one-on-one opportunities. If he don’t have one-on-one, what’s the secondary part. We gotta get him some space, get him opportunity to get him one-on-one.

**Corbin on what can be read into the starting lineup: Nothing. It’s exhibition season; it’s the first game we played. That was a group that I thought we want to look at first…we’ll see where things fall. [Will there be different starting lineups for every preseason game then?] I wouldn’t say that. It may be, may not be. We’ll see how things go.

** Corbin on Enes Kanter, UDQM: He talked about all off-season was getting some. Some different moves and going to some different things and not always looking to bang, bang, bang.

**Al Jefferson on Kanter: I think he played well…he’s more patient on the block. He taking what the defense give him instead of trying to go through the defense. But one thing I can get him to stop doing is ball-faking when he don’t have to. I think he had, like, four or five more buckets but he was ball-faking when he really didn’t have, all he had to do was just go up. But that’s something he gonna get better with. We work on post moves all the time.

**Kanter on his offense: This summer really helped me a lot. Also, even in the game, I talk to Al on the bench. He told me, you know, this guy’s doing this, this guy’s doing this, you know, you gotta do this move, this move, and I just listen to him really well and then I just, you know, try to do what he tell me to do.

**Kanter on expanding his offensive game beyond the up-and-under: Even last night, I was hearing the players was telling other big mens, “Don’t jump, don’t jump. He’s going to go up and under.” Now I’m working on my hook shots, and just turn-baseline shot, and also I’m really working on my face-up game.

**Alec Burks on Enes last year vs. Enes this year: I was around Enes more than anybody [last year]…we did a whole lot of rookie stuff together. I feel like he always been like that. He just gained more confidence, start talking to everybody like that. He always talked to me like that, you know, but everybody seeing the true Enes right now.

**Burks on the first preseason game: It went good, you know? I feel like I made some shots, I missed some shots. Played some great defense, you know, I feel like it went all right for me.*

* FWIW, David Locke said on his Tip-Off that Corbin subbed Randy Foye back in the game because Burks wasn’t getting it done defensively.

**Burks on takeaways from first game; channeling Tyrone Corbin: Just show we gotta get better. It’s a long season, so we gonna get better…This year’s gon make us better. [What do you want to accomplish?] I just wanna get better. Get better and win.

What I feel after this post is: I love Big Al (for mentoring Enes). I love Enes (for being coachable). I love Burks (because now I understand why he danced with Enes at the scrimmage this second time around). Not a fan of Corbin (no explanation needed).